tlazotli.

Headword:

tlazotli.

Principal English Translation:

a precious thing; most often seen combined with nouns to mean dear, precious, etc. possessed, can mean a person beloved by someone (such as a newborn baby, a child, etc.)

James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 236.

Orthographic Variants:

tlaçotli, tlaçotl

IPAspelling:

tɬɑsohtɬi

Alonso de Molina:

tlazotli. cosa preciosa, o cara.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 119r. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen:

TLAZOH-TLI someone or something beloved, rare, or expensive / cosa presiosa o cara (M), querido (Z) T has what appears to be a plural form of this with -TIN, meaning ‘drought.’ See TLAZOĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 306.

Attestations from sources in English:

See an image that represents tlazotli in the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities, 2020-present).

Tictetezoa in chalchiuitl, ticoaoazoa in quetzalli. Inin tlatolli: itechpa mitoa: in aquin itla cenca tlazotli quitlacoa. = You scratch the jade, you tear apart the quetzal feather. This is said about someone who mutilates something precious.
Thelma D. Sullivan, "Nahuatl Proverbs, Conundrums, and Metaphors, Collected by Sahagún," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 4 (1963), 138–139.

ҫan ximotta titlaҫotli, y, maҫo ticioatzintli = If thou wert only to esteem thyself as a precious person! - This, even though thou art a woman (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 94.

at noce ixqujchtzin, atzintli, conmopolviz in tlalticpaque: in chalchiuhtli, in maqujztli, in tlaҫotli: aҫo techonmocujliliqujuh = Or perhaps, small as he is, a tender little thing, the lord of the earth will destroy the precious stone, the arm band, the precious thing. Perhaps he who made the child will come to take it from us (central Mexico, sixteenth century)
Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain; Book 6 -- Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, No. 14, Part 7, eds. and transl. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe and Salt Lake City: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1961), 185.

Attestations from sources in Spanish:

Ihuan in canin ixpan tiquizaz in ixiptlatzin in Totecuyo, anozo in itlazohuan anozo cruz, huel ticmahuiztiliz = Y allí donde pasares frente a la venerable imagen de Nuestro Señor, o quizá de sus santos, o quizá de la cruz, lo honrarás de buena manera (centro de México, s. XVI)
Josefina García Quintana, "Exhortación de un padre a su hijo; texto recogido por Andrés de Olmos," Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 11 (1974), 152–153.

Yacuica ymatotzin totlaçonatzin nezqui tlaçotl = Nuevo manto de nuestra amada madre, fue muy hermoso (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala and México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 254–5.

Auh in yehuatl Tecuciztecatl in ipan tlamacehuaya muchi tlazotli. = Y este Tecuciztécatl hacía penitencia con todas cosas preciosas. (CF/VII, p. 4)
Thelma Sullivan, Compendio de la gramática náhuatl, 4a. edición (México: UNAM, 1998), 141.

IDIEZ morfema:

tlazohtli.

IDIEZ traduc. inglés:

s.o. or s.t. loved in excess or spoiled.

IDIEZ def. náhuatl:

Macehualli tlen zan itztoc huan axcanah tequiti pampa tlahuel quiicneliah. “Quiihtohuah quetl nopa iconeuh Leonor quipixtoqueh quen tlazohtli pampa axquicahuah ma tequiti pampa nelicelti oquichpil. ”

IDIEZ morfología:

tlazoā (tlachiuhtli).

IDIEZ gramática:

tlat.

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